Dial Down Screen Time

As you're reading these words right now, take a second to reflect on the number of hours you've spent staring at a screen today and decide if it's healthy. This may be a rude awakening for some and an impassive reminder for others, but your eyes and mental health will thank you for it.

With the pandemic effectively cutting people all across the globe from their work and socialising offline, a number of us have compensated for this lack of meaning by turning to our devices more than ever. Most of us likely don't think twice about spending half the time we're awake twiddling our thumbs over our phones or snuggling with our laptops. Is this okay? Not if you ask mental health professionals, who advise that we spend no more than two hours a day with devices. For most young adults, this is nothing short of hilariously unrealistic. With several schools and colleges having opted to hold online classes for students for a portion of the day, the time spent on learning and assignments are already higher than what is recommended, and this doesn't even take leisure into consideration. It seems like a lost cause.

But this is where we must remember that just because we can't change everything doesn't mean that we should stop doing our best to care about our well-being. It may appear to be impossible to get away from the ubiquitous presence of screens, but we can minimise the time we spend watching them by keeping ourselves engaged. The fact of the matter is that our first instinct when we can't think of anything else to do is snatch our phone and check the notifications. Let's face it: Actually spending two minutes to think about something productive to do is time that can both contribute to our self-care as well as maintain our self-esteem when our inbox is empty. It's two birds with one stone!

It may also be a good idea to keep track of how often we open certain applications without any apparent reason. It'll do us well to remember that we get less sensitive to content with the passage of time and our mind yearns for more. It doesn't help that there are algorithms whose sole purpose is to keep us glued to our devices as long as possible. We can bypass this problem altogether if we could find something fulfilling that'll hopefully cause us to turn off the screen and just do literally anything else. Take a walk. Listen to music. Read. Meditate. Just get some shut eye for a bit. The world of screens will remain when you return, and the duration of your trip is your choice when all is said and done.